Chad Lewis tells this story, from 2003, when Andy Reid was staring at 0-2, burly back up against the wall, the natives convinced he was all bun and no burger. Reid’s Philadelphia Eagles, preseason NFC darlings, were instead a hot, wet mess, having opened palatial Lincoln Financial Field up with back-to-back defeats at the hands of Tampa Bay and New England by a combined score of 48-10.
“And we’re playing the Buffalo Bills in the third game, and he came in front of the team,” recalls Lewis, then an Eagles tight end, now associate athletic director for development at his alma mater, Brigham Young University. “He said, “I’m not going to change anything about what we’re doing. We’ve got a great team. I believe in you guys. We’ve got a great system. I know the system is going to work.’
“So by saying he was not going to change anything, it meant, ‘I’m not going to push the panic button, I’m not going to freak out, it’s not going to happen here.’ And because he did that, it just calmed everyone down and (we were able) to take a step back. And we ended up going back to the NFC Championship game.”
For the first time in Reid’s two and a half years with the Chiefs, Kansas City is freaking out. The Chiefs, a vogue pick in August to usurp King Peyton’s reign atop the AFC West, are 1-4 out of the gate, losers of four straight – including two carbon-copy, last-second home losses at Arrowhead Stadium in which the defense saw a defeat snatched from the jaws of imminent victory. The latest straw was last Sunday’s 18-17 come-from-ahead setback to the Chicago Bears, as quarterback Jay Cutler rallied a limping squad that featured backups across the offensive line and at wide receiver from a 17-6 third-quarter deficit.
“I felt the same way after I looked at the tape that I felt after the game,” Reid told reporters Monday. “So you go back and you evaluate yourself as a coach – that you’re giving the players an opportunity to do that, and once given the opportunity, that the players, they’re making plays when given that opportunity. That’s what’s real.”
So is the local angst, putting Reid at a crossroads and in the crosshairs. Since turning a two-win dumpster fire left by former general manager Scott Pioli into an 11-5 Wild-Card team in 2013, the conversation has shifted to diminishing returns – since September 2014, the Chiefs are 10-11 – and personnel foibles (offensive line, wide receiver) that never seem fully addressed.
Two weeks ago, the grumbling was that the roster was supposed to be better than this. This week, the question being raised is colder: what if they aren’t? Quarterback Alex Smith has been sacked 21 times in five games and doesn’t appear to trust his pocket or his targets who aren’t Jeremy Maclin; tight end Travis Kelce, earmarked for a Gronkowski-esque breakout, has just eight catches for 84 yards over the last two games and hasn’t scored since week 1; worse yet, a defense expected to carry the water isn’t getting to the quarterback (2.2 sacks per game, 16th in the league) or flipping the field (four takeaways, tied for 25th).
And now Pro Bowl running back Jamaal Charles, the offense’s spine and linchpin, is out for the season with a torn right ACL, the result of a non-contact injury early in the third quarter against Chicago, a freak plant-and-twist that went horribly wrong.
“Jamaal Charles tearing his ACL for the season, that hurts – that’s insult on top of injury,” Lewis says. “Just to lose that (Bears) game in the last couple seconds like that just was totally brutal. There’s enough reason for a weak-minded team, right there, to crumble. I just don’t see it happening.
“I’ve never, ever, one time, seen (Reid) despondent. I’ve never seen him quit. I’ve never seen Andy waver in front of the team or behind the scenes. And I don’t see it happening now. They have the decks stacked against them, but it’s not insurmountable.”
And yet Reid is going to be pushing this particular boulder uphill against a schedule that features just one Arrowhead date (October 25, v Pittsburgh) between the middle of October and November 29 – the Chiefs moved a November 1 home contest against Detroit to London as part of the league’s International Series mandate.
“There’s a time that your – obviously – your character is going to be tested, right?” said Reid, whose Chiefs visit Minnesota (2-2) Sunday. “So there are not a lot of people that are patting you on the back and saying how good you’re doing. You’ve got to reach a little deeper and pull together, and good things can happen when guys do that.”
Reid circles the wagons as well as anyone. But will the wheels hold up? General manager John Dorsey’s initial first-round pick, tackle Eric Fisher (2013) has yet to impress on either the left side or the right; Dorsey’s second, outside linebacker Dee Ford (2014), has proven to be even more invisible (ProFootballFocus.com grade: -3.4) as a pass-rushing threat. Smith, who amassed a career-best 386 yards at Cincinnati without tossing a single touchdown pass, is again under fire, as is defensive coordinator Bob Sutton, whose schemes have made bad signal-callers look helpless, average signal-callers look troubled, and elite signal-callers look … well, elite.
“He will never, ever blame others,” Lewis says of Reid. “He will never blame the fans and he will never blame the media to the team. He never makes excuses. He will never throw coaches under the bus. That’ll never happen with Andy Reid.”
Old debates about his game-management and red-zone decisions are also on the table, while even Reid’s eye for offensive lines – where he cut his teeth in colleges and the pros – has drawn scrutiny. A patchwork group last fall, crippled by free-agent defections, suspensions and injuries, barely got Smith through the entire regular season (45 sacks in 15 appearances) before a ruptured spleen ended the signal-caller’s year. This year’s bunch, despite a trade for veteran guard Ben Grubbs, is on an even worse clip than 2014, with the line ranked 31st by FootballOutsiders.com in terms of adjusted sack rate (10.9 percent; the league average is 6.3). Smith is on a pace to be taken down 63 times through 15 weeks. Assuming, of course, he makes it that far without Charles to help shoulder the load.
“[Reid] is going to dial someone up in the running game,” Lewis says. “But if one part of the game is really hurting, he’ll adapt enough to be successful. He’s rigid in what he believes, he’s rigid in the strongest sense of the word, but he’s not rigid to the point of being stupid. He can adapt. And he’s not afraid of that. He wants the players to be hungry and humble, and when you’re hungry and humble as a coach, that means you’re able to do whatever it takes to be able to change and win.”
Kansas City is changing, too, the rabid football red of autumn replaced by the colors of the neighboring baseball Royals, who host Houston in the deciding Game 5 of the American League Division Series Wednesday night. To Reid’s chagrin, his Chiefs have done their part to make a Blue October even bluer.
